Western media loves reporting on instances of rape, murder in India, China even though statistics reveal they are lower per capita than in the West. Hegemony in action.
The western media also loves to report instances of rape and murder in the West.
Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
51–60 of 61 posts
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#52Has anyone worked out what the base rate expectation of murder would be? I think I read in the FT that Didi has booked a few billion rides in that period. How many people (and women) would normally be murdered in cabs? The stories cited are obviously horrific and it sounds like Didi could have prevented them with a better system. But, I'd nonetheless be interested to know how safe this is to the alternative, and also…
I've personally had enough problems with taxi drivers (and I live in a developed country) that I will only take a taxi as a last resort. They overcharge, they demand cash because apparently their EFTPOS machine is broken, they drive you on the scenic route to increase the fare, or they'll try to set a fixed price when you know it's cheaper to run the meter, half the time the driver doesn't even know how to get there…
Not to mention malfunctioning meters, especially around tourist spots when you don't speak the language.
With Uber, I at least know what I'm going to be charged
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've personally had enough problems with taxi drivers (and I live in a developed country) that I will only take a taxi as a last resort. They overcharge, they demand cash because apparently their EFTPOS machine is broken, they drive you on the scenic route to increase the fare, or they'll try to set a fixed price when you know it's cheaper to run the meter, half the time the driver doesn't even know how to get there…
As I understand, people are outraged because Didi built the ability to "rate" passengers in terms of their looks, i.e. whereas riders would rate drivers in terms of "fast, professional, etc", drivers could share ratings of riders in terms of "young, sexy, cute, etc". This last murder also apparently happened a mere day after Didi's decision to re-enable drivers' abilities to see riders pictures (a feature which had b…
That’s an extremely freaky and unsettling design choice, to include such a feature in a system involving customer relations and client service.
It seems like the kind of idea you’d throw in, if you absolutely did not care about any amount of success.
Something like that is bound to blow up sooner or later, and destroy confidence in professionalism. It goes against an almost universal idea, cutting across all cultures, that customers shouldn’t be judged if you expect to do business with them.
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s less about governments, and more about how the law of unintended consequences applies in all human matters. Example: anthropologists believe that on the whole, more polite societies typically murder each other at a higher rate than less polite societies.
That's an amazing stat - do you have a source for that?
Here’s a forum thread with an overview and some links to primary sources: https://www.debatepolitics.com/philosophical-discussions/221...
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or is is that such crimes are under-reported by the state-controlled media? Or that statistics for such crimes cannot be easily located, or at all? Someone else has posted on this thread stating they couldn't find relevant statistics easily. What you are saying may well be correct, it just seems that it's hard to verify with hard information.
Murders are under-reported in the mass-media in America because it would make for boring news. Imagine, day after day, the news saying, "and another 47 people were murdered today in America, including 13 in Chicago, and 4 each in Baltimore and Houston". While the homicide rate in the United States is dropping, there were still ~17000 of them in 2016.
When you put it like that, it doesn't seem so bad? Less than half the number of car crash fatalities, anyway. Past a certain age, we're more likely to die from any number of different health reasons...
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s often political pressures on police departments to fix unpopular statistics, and not the actual issue. Most famously this leads Japanese departments to label difficult murder cases as suicides.
Excellent point. This is a prime example of how government intervention mucks things up by setting up relatively benign goals, but in practice leads to an outcome that is unchanged, or perhaps even worse. What if all Japanese citizens were allowed to carry guns out in the open? An armed society is a polite society.
An armed society is a polite society
"Polite" just means "in keeping with cultural norms". If it's polite to deal with disagreements, injuries and insults by pulling a gun, that's still polite but I certainly wouldn't feel safe.
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#57I thought this NYT article gave some good context. Didi promoted the ride sharing service as a way to meet people and for hooking up: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/technology/china-didi-chu... > So through suggestive ads hinting at hookups through driving, Didi pushed Hitch’s romantic possibilities. In a 2015 interview with the Chinese online portal NetEase, Ms. Huang compared Hitch cars to cafes and bars. And:…
I'm not saying that you're wrong, as it does feel like an incredibly safe country, but most statistics published by the Chinese government range from questionable to outright fabrications.
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s often political pressures on police departments to fix unpopular statistics, and not the actual issue. Most famously this leads Japanese departments to label difficult murder cases as suicides.
Excellent point. This is a prime example of how government intervention mucks things up by setting up relatively benign goals, but in practice leads to an outcome that is unchanged, or perhaps even worse. What if all Japanese citizens were allowed to carry guns out in the open? An armed society is a polite society.
You can legally own an artillery piece in Pakistan, but I can't vouch for manners of locals
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#59True - there are millions of passengers every day using didi.
True - people got murdered in cabs too.
But, I'd say Didi is at least 50% responsible for this tragedy.
1. The killer was reported sexual harassment by another female customer one day before the girl got killed. Didi still lets him drive.
2. The girl's friend called the police when she realized the girl was missing. The police called Didi's customer service. The guy who answered the phone refused to provide the driver's info, (license, phone number, location, etc.) and said that he needed to report to Didi's safety department. Then he even called the driver himself, asking: do you have the passenger on your car? did you kill her? The driver said no and hang up the phone.
3. The police finally got the driver's information from Didi almost two hours after they requested. But it was too late.
Didi's poor background check on drivers and unprofessional customer service killed the girl. I don't think it would happen if it's uber.
Re: Rideshare boycott sparked by murders in China
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s often political pressures on police departments to fix unpopular statistics, and not the actual issue. Most famously this leads Japanese departments to label difficult murder cases as suicides.
Excellent point. This is a prime example of how government intervention mucks things up by setting up relatively benign goals, but in practice leads to an outcome that is unchanged, or perhaps even worse. What if all Japanese citizens were allowed to carry guns out in the open? An armed society is a polite society.
> An armed society is a polite society.
If you believe that, you've never lived in Atlanta (or Japan for that matter).